


Where's Marisa?

by Caribous (Carib0u)



Series: Alice of Makai [1]
Category: Touhou Project
Genre: Action, F/F, Melancholy, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-17
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-01-18 20:36:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12395766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carib0u/pseuds/Caribous
Summary: Alice comes to terms with Marisa taking another lover. Her estranged daughter has a very different opinion.





	1. Where's Marisa?

This is the twelfth night I’ve waited till late. She didn’t come, again.

It’s a situation that demands patience: my true love is with her new other lover. But no one in all Gensokyo is more patient than I am.

I put up with her for years: Over she’d come, whenever she felt like it. Banging on my door. Demanding food and company. Usually not forgetting to pilfer my most valuable books within reach as she left.  When I think of the tonnage of my sweets, alone, she’s eaten, I wonder where she put it all. Her metabolism must be like a wildfire. Maybe that’s the secret to powering Master Spark.

I put up with the shrine maidens and their death sentence hanging over those like me - for years. I put up with it because in the end I knew taking care of this world I chose to come to required us all - those of even modest good will. I want to hate her, but I can’t.

No, not Marisa, Reimu. Don’t be silly!

I put up with not having a father, and nearly always not having my mother, either. Yes, I was a cliche - the lonely child of a good family who had no friends but her dolls. Or sometimes one of the servants. But my dolls were as close to real sisters as someone of my sort has, after all. Long ago, before my memories start, I know _I_ was a doll. In the other world that is not my world, Makai, and is not Gensokyo, there had already been written a fanciful tale that suited our world and Gensokyo more than it did that world, which has no magic. They borrow ours at night, in their dreams, then laugh about it when they wake. But this tale reflected surprisingly well what real magical worlds are like. They have their own logic. Shinki found it so charming, she fell in love with the young heroine, Alice.

_Other beings have daughters,_ she thought.  _So why not such as I?_

And because she is a god, when she made me in the image of Alice Liddel and her dream-world counterpart, I took on some of the nature of humanity, and some of fantasy. Of course, neither of us knew that. I had no mind at all, and Shinki had no experience to judge by. I like to think my mother poured some of herself into me. I know how she might have felt: my daughters, Shanghai, Hourai and Medicine, who I adopted though she hated me at first, are my daughters indeed.

And I know there is something different about me, for I am the only person in this world that can _make_ as Shinki did. Shanghai and Hourai are proof of that. I need to stop making other dolls in their image. It can’t feel good for them to see, and in the heat of battle I couldn’t bear it if they were injured because I mistook A Shanghai or AN Hourai for the real thing. I think I can still make even my real, alive daughters explode. I worry I can. But even if not, I am glad I decided on that path. The new dolls, that don’t look like anyone already here, are using more traditional methods of disguise. And I don’t let the ones I put my time and attention into act as weapons.

For a while, I made dolls in my own image, too. And my size. But that was condemned universally as dirty pool, and not honoring the hold-a-little-back spirit of our danmaku battles. Even _she_ holds back, even with her crowning Master Spark attack. If you don’t know which Alice is a bomb and which is real, you might go all out against the real me. Such is the nature of our existence, and our struggles. As I said, I am glad. Would she have left me once and for all if I started making _her_? I hope that’s not in her nature, but witches are strange.

I am an alive, conscious being, who was once inanimate material. I do not age more than I wish to. In Makai, I was mostly human, because my namesake Alice was, and Shinki is a faithful re-creator. Since I moved to the Forest of Magic, my human qualities fell away, including my human aging, sicknesses and mortality. I became able to live mostly off of the ambient magic, not really requiring food and drink.

Because of those things, I am a youkai in Gensokyo terms, and new youkai, as I was once, are supposed to be destroyed. But I am not alone in having outlived my sentence. Once a youkai has survived long enough, you’re supposed to give up. It’s not a formal rule, it’s an unwritten one. And after all, we saved the moon - the entire moon - the three of us! Me and _her_ , and of course her new lover, too. Gensokyo owes me a lot. Every girl who loves another girl under that moon owes me.

And in my battle with Reimu now over _her_ , there is a hold-something-back rule, too: we both want _her_ to be happy. It’s corny, and it’s a terrible bother, but there it is. It hurts that in my time spent patiently preparing and preserving food, crafting my dolls, perfecting new areas of magic, most of it non-martial, and drinking my millionth cup of tea, I have no choice but to follow my thoughts over to wherever _they_ are. It’s not the shrine, which Reimu is neglecting for the first time I can recall since she became a _miko_. Where did _she_ take Reimu? Which is worse, one of **our** places we visited as lovers, or some new place she thinks Reimu is worthy of, but not me?

No one pays the seven-colored magician any mind, I’ve noticed. Patchouli has a clue, and Remilia much more than that. Eirin and Kaguya understand what I’m capable of. If I ever turned  more than a dust speck of my energy to hostile purposes. Take the one thing I’m known for: doll-making. My dolls can make more dolls, and those, dolls in turn, and all of them can be armed. I could turn the forests, rocks, streams, and most of the beings in Gensokyo into raw material for an ever-increasing plague of dolls, blowing up any opposition the way a flooding river washes away everything that blocks its path.

And I am the only known master of **all** the forms of magic. So with a little ingenuity, and enough time storing up magic in the Forest, I could be equally lethal in all the others. It amazes me how light-hearted everyone is about that fact. I am a little grateful. If they really contemplated it, I might be the target of a preemptive strike. At best, they would shrink away in fear. Shinki did not, unfortunately, bequeath her godly charm to me. I think another reason I am not more feared, in addition to my unfailingly polite and modest nature, is that those with discerning eyes sense my **despair**. If I am bottomlessly sad nearly all the time, it makes it hard to motivate myself to rise to the challenges others can, and in that sense, I am divided, and my own worst enemy. _She_ makes me feel a little better. I owe her much for that.

I have been tempted to leave here;  take Shanghai, Hourai and Medicine with me back to Makai. Many times. But I know _she_ belongs in this world. Gensokyo is still, for her, a gigantic playground. And she deserves to have happiness in what passes for a life for creatures like her here in Gensokyo, brief as it is. Because she’s a witch, she does preserve her life a bit. She’ll live two or three times as long as the people in the magic-less world do. I have offered, of course, to mend that. To preserve her for _real_. For _me_. But:

“Being a youkai? No, that doesn’t suit me. I want to have every breath, every day, be an adventure and a thrill. Youkai usually have to worry about some fixation, like sunlight or bones in a graveyard, or some such. And they are always coldly plotting for bizarre reasons against other youkai and humans. I know you’re different, Alice, and so are some others. But my mother wasn’t the goddess of her own world. And I’m not as innocent and angelic as Flandre.”

When I pointed out that, of course, I had the time to make potions to keep her from aging, or to help her do so, she pointed out that that was how Eirin and Kaguya got started on the path **they** followed. And she often talked with Eirin who said she didn’t recommend real immortality as a choice.

And as much as I hate to face it, Reimu, too, deserves some happiness in her mayfly life.

 

 


	2. A Medicine for Melancholy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Medicine Melancholy does not share Alice's composure.

Medicine Melancholy was in a foul mood. Of course, with her, that went without saying, but today was particularly bad. Recently, she’d been told definitively that her adoptive mother, Alice, was in fact her real mother. It didn’t endear Alice to her. Quite the opposite. She’d taken away one of Medicine’s points of pride, in fact. Secretly, she’d always believed she arose spontaneously from among the poisoned plants on the Nameless Hill in Gensokyo, fed by the negative emotions of the children left there. And now when Hourai and Shanghai called her “Medicine onee-san,” she couldn’t correct them.

But swallowing her immense pride, she’d gone to Hieda no Akyuu and asked directly about her origins. Akyuu had not seen it herself, but she recalled perfectly everything she’d overheard or had been reported to her. With Patchouli’s aid, because Patchouli was good at research and putting things together, and as it turned out, could cheat because Alice had confided in her, they were able to definitively discern Medicine’s origins.

A hundred years before Medicine came alive, Alice was, among other things, a psychopomp in Gensokyo. She ferried the souls of humans, and of youkai with souls, into Hell to be judged by the yama at Higan. In the case of some youkai, though they’d been destroyed, their will to continue in Gensokyo made them turn into vengeful spirits. Being a medium of death took its toll on Alice, and she put her sorrow into a doll that she didn’t give a name to. She took it along with her when she ferried human spirits. Some of them found the Sorrow Doll comforting. Others, the opposite. As for the youkai, they became increasingly difficult. Finally, Alice became a maid to Mina, a very powerful vengeance spirit, who trained her in combatting and dominating spirits. It was then that Alice learned her domestic skills and manner, which she kept forever after. Some of her vengeance spirit training leaked out of her into her work at home.

It was possibly in memory of that time that when Alice first met Reimu, she asked her if she was there to offer her life to Alice. That had certainly set the wrong tone to that meeting.

Alice had poured so much sorrow into the little Sorrow Doll that it had started to leak back out to her. She had no idea her dolls could come alive the way she had in Makai, so she decided to abandon the doll on the Nameless Hill where human children were sometimes abandoned, and either died of the poisoned lilies of the valley that grew there, or were taken by youkai and either died or were transformed at their hands.

Sometimes the abandoned children took a little comfort from the doll they found there. And their sorrow poured into the doll, in turn.

Before Medicine came alive, a couple of things happened. First, Alice Margatroid, out gathering lilies of the valley for medicine, came across the doll. It had changed so much on the Nameless Hill that Alice didn’t recognize it. It looked like something someone had fashioned out of the lilies-of-the-valley. It was good work, she observed.

“I wonder. I wonder if you could make that doll a medicine.” While in general the hill was poisonous, the plants could also be used to cure some ailments, magical and natural. As her aura fell on the doll, her words poured into it. It didn’t come alive or register it, but something inside of the doll recorded Alice’s words. But then, something in the doll made Alice feel sad, so she left it alone after gathering enough lilies for her potions.

Shortly after that, Kirisame Marisa set off a Master Spark directly over the doll, and some of the power flowed into it. It was also the hundredth anniversary of the doll’s creation. The doll’s eyes opened, and it took in the world for the first time. The only word it knew then was the one Alice had said around it, “Medicine.”

Even worse than Alice being her mother, Marisa could be said to have been her father. And Medicine hated Marisa. Her thoughts were a little jumbled there, because the main thing she hated about Marisa was how she monopolized Alice’s attention, which Medicine claimed not to want. And now, with Marisa taking a human lover, Medicine was deeply wounded, but again, couldn’t openly take offense on Alice’s behalf.

Because she had been created only a hundred years before, and alive only a short time, Medicine was an adolescent at best, and it showed. Technically, as a new youkai, she should have been more grateful to be under Alice’s protection, but she wasn’t.

Still, that might have motivated her current mood, and its resolution: her weak-willed mother could sit on her butt all she wished, cooking, sewing and making dolls while her foolish human choice of a lover ran around with Reimu as she felt like it. Medicine was not that kind of youkai. She realized Marisa was, unfortunately, off limits. But Reimu definitely was not. And the shrine maiden was going to realize Medicine’s true power only when it was far too late.


	3. Preparations

Alice knew.

The love/hate relationship with her eldest daughter was nothing new. Of late, it seemed to be directed towards the world at large. Medicine had even, miraculously, addressed Alice spontaneously. Of course, it was to call Alice a coward, a weakling, and an idiot. Alice knew Medicine had a point, so she responded gently, which of course didn't soothe her at all.

Medicine hadn't been alive all that long, and it would take time for her to come to terms with what it meant to have an indeterminately long life-span. Since Alice was a doll, a human and a youkai all at once, and the daughter of a goddess, and perhaps verging on being a goddess herself, if a minor one, she could probably keep age at bay as long as she had the magic and the will to do so. Medicine couldn't understand giving a rival with a Mayfly existence a share in your own Mayfly love. She couldn't understand chivalry. With or without Reimu, Marisa's existence would fly by like a brief greeting at one of Remilia's parties. And Alice would be left in sadness and isolation.

And now, as Alice looked up at a commotion, Medicine grabbed her broom with an angry and determined look, shoved open the door to Alice's cottage, and slammed it behind her. But not, actually, before giving Alice a very meaningful glare. Alice knew it was that, but she wasn't as in tune with Medicine as she was with Hourai and Shanghai, so she didn't know quite what the significance was.

She didn't see or hear a trace of Medicine for over a week.

 

* * *

This hill, where everything started, was Medicine's strength. She could still feel them there - the traces, the ghosts, the wraiths of a century of abandoned children. Many of them, to the degree they recalled feelings, looked up to Medicine Melancholy as almost a parent - such as she was. She wrapped herself in them. In their essence. Their sorrow. She felt her strength increasing rapidly, but she elected to stay still and calm her mind - sheer power wouldn't be enough for her plan; she needed concentration just as much. And after a week of perfect stillness, she had it.

* * *

 Alice kept her magic studies up, quietly, with no one around but her daughters and the non-alive dolls to witness her efforts. This week, she'd felt urgently compelled to make an extra effort.

Patchouli's purple magic of science she found very cleansing, so that's how she started her week. She'd had an uneasy feeling about Medicine when she left in a fury, and it didn't go away. Contrariwise, she always felt a bit soiled by the Red magic of unmaking. Still, it was among the most powerful, and invaluable when confronted with illusions. She would practice that in the middle of the week, letting the other colors bleed off the feeling. She usually studied the black magic she'd learned from Marisa in the middle of the week, too, for the same reason. And, of course, after studying  red, blue, purple, yellow, green and black magic, she always finished up with the white magic of love, compassion, healting and sacrifice. She'd studied the blue magic of music, dancing and her own broomless flight. In her garden she'd used black magic to clear out any weeds or pests, then extended herself practicing her green magic. She turned to the yellow magic of Divination (she'd seized some of Cointreauy's affinity when they battled). If Alice had a weakness, that was it. But she almost felt like she sensed an incident coming, so she guessed she'd at least get a hint of what was going on - especially with Medicine. Shockingly, when she used tea leaves, a crystal ball, her Taroc, the images that came to her were of Reimu and Marisa tumbling in each other's arms, at Reimu's quarters and Marisa's cottage alike. Alice was angry at her lack of self-control, at first. Then she realized what she was really seeing. Reimu and Marisa were part of the Incident - and so was Medicine.

What Alice did next only a youkai magician _could_ have done - and only a one-time human _would_ have done. She took out three images she'd made. One was of Marisa's face the first time she and Alice had joined in Alice's bed. Alice was so focused now, she didn't feel a tear in her eye contemplating Marisa's beauty and joy, no longer only for her. The second had come with more difficulty. One of the Incidents had seen everyone but Alice failing, and the seven-colored magician had had no choice but to expend herself many times more than was normal, and save the day. In the face of that, Medicine Melancholy had produced the first, and perhaps only, smile of her existence. Looking at it now, Alice thought she truly looked like a child, and her daughter, in it. Despite Medicine's rancor, Alice loved her wayward and neglected eldest, and she let herself fill with that feeling.  The final image she'd enchanted onto a scroll the first time she and Reimu had made their peace and had tea at Reimu's shrine. Alice had tossed a blessed coin in the box. As long as Reimu didn't spend it, the coin would arrange that somehow she and the shrine would get by. Alice put a small charm on it to make any human reluctant to part with the coin, which she'd brought from Makai and enchanted to seal the peace between her, a youkai, and the shrine maidens. Reimu's calm and polite face looked out at Alice, and she remembered her commitment to peace with this young, short-lived, but spirited girl. Alice could admire her courage even if she was unhappy about her choices.

Alice placed the three scrolls on her table, and took out one of her biggest needles - the one she used to sew a Goliath doll, among other purposes. Hourai and shanghai pushed two chairs next to Alice, and each clung to one arm. They summoned the other dolls that were inside the cottage to place themselves behind their mother. Bowing over the images, Alice bared her breast, and stabbed the needle into her heart. Not deeply, no, for that would not do, but enough so that some of her heart's blood spilled out over the three images. As she did so, she cast a White healing spell on her heart, partly powered by the ceremony itself. Nonetheless, she slumped over the images. Hourai, Shanghai and the dolls lowered Alice to the floor, and they left her where she lay. As she'd slumped into the table, Alice had felt her spell, intertwined with her personal Fate, catch hold. The purity of her intent hadn't faltered, and her sacrifice was accepted. The three girls involved in the Incident were as protected as Alice could do from afar. It wasn't enough, and when Alice healed enough, she'd set out to find them.

* * *

 Medicine Melancholy thought the mere execution would be a matter of minutes. Of course, her weakling mother would never thank her - quite the contrary. She decided she'd flee to Makai afterward, and meet her grandmother. Surely, a goddess would realize ordinary mortals were a trifle as a rival to whatever Alice was - doll, youkai, human, goddess, the fact remained that she was unique, high status, and secretly very powerful. Hitting Reimu while Marisa was with her was out of the question. First of all, Medicine's powers were the opposite of discriminating, and even if she could avoid Marisa, the black-and-white would rush to her defense and no doubt be injured or killed in the process. 

 


	4. No coming back

Remilia Scarlet had approved of Reimu and Marisa staying in a room at the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Patchouli Knowledge had not, but she was merely the librarian. She shut herself up in the library when the couple arrived. She'd always had a soft spot for Alice, Marisa knew. It was hypocritical, but she was still happy that Patchouli had never gotten anywhere with it. But if Marisa wanted to keep her situation with Alice alive, it was time to go back to her cottage, then set out to keep Alice company for a while. Reimu didn't enjoy being on the other side of the triangle, but she would put up with it. Marisa had been spending much more time with Reimu than with Alice, for a long time in fact.

She'd traded two rare books - one from Patchouli, in fact, and one from Alice, for special cuttings with which she'd grown spy plants near Alice's cottage. They were twin cuttings from the same psychic tree, and not only did they react to auras, health, and mental states of the beings near them, but what one perceived would affect their twin in another place. Alice had probably figured that out, right away, but left them alone, as it worked both ways: just by looking at the plants she could tell if Marisa was alive and well, and even when she was probably planning to visit. It took a bit of Green and Yellow magic gleaned from Alice to interpret them, but Marisa considered it effort well-spent. She could see Alice was anxious and lonely. Marisa tried not to feel bad; her motto was either don't do something or enjoy it.

Marisa was just about to straighten up when she remembered that Reimu had wanted her help with a magical ceremony this very night. She hadn't reminded Marisa when they parted, so it was probably partly a test. Too bad for her plans with Alice, but Marisa had to follow through. She grabbed a few magical necessities and headed off to the shrine.

* * *

Alice dragged herself out behind her cottage and sat down heavily. She wasn't really healed, but she could function. To test herself, still sitting down, she practiced seven hues of danmaku, at all nine of her levels. She started with the most strenuous, to see how she was doing, and amazingly, made it all the way through. A bit of rest and leaning heavily on her Tome should see her through whatever was going on. In her weary state, Alice's Divination senses were actually more acute. The one skill she was strong at was sensing phantoms, and out of the corner of her eye she saw a flock of them. They looked like the shades of the abandoned children on the Nameless Hill. Which ... meant Medicine had passed by her cottage without stopping. But this many shades clinging to her was unprecedented. In fact it seemed there were so many they were falling off and being left behind where Medicine had passed. Maybe her daughter _**was**_  the Incident. She had a sinking feeling that was the case. She still needed to rest, but as she did so, she planned out how she could subdue and control Medicine without undue harm. It would be a challenge, if the number of phantoms she'd acquired was any indication. She opened the Tome and began reading, in chapters she hadn't considered since the Incident before last. A rough plan started to coalesce in her thoughts.

* * *

 

By this point, Medicine was an unstoppable ball of anger and hatred and disease and corrosion and death. She felt like a multitude in her cloud of poison. The crying of the children added to the pain in her heart, and it produced a beautiful and deadly harmony. Out of foolish sentiment she'd stopped by to peer at Alice, hidden by the shades. Her mother seemed to be injured slightly, and normally Medicine would have stayed and spied on her because of that. Especially this night, when it would probably be her last glimpse of Alice for years, until she visited Makai, at least. But she couldn't afford that. She decided to see Alice's condition as a lucky omen: at least she wouldn't be interfering tonight, so only Marisa had to be accounted for.  She quickly made her way to the Hakurei shrine, where Hakurei Reimu was nowhere to be found. Using up some of her power, she traced Reimu to the Hakurei Barrier. The human shrine maiden was probably gathering supplies of some sort from the non-magical world. Medicine decided she could maintain herself and project her power for the few minutes it would take to destroy Reimu once and for all, so she went through the barrier. And she didn't sense any sign of Marisa. Perhaps the faithless witch was even now "comforting" the wounded Alice. Well, Medicine wouldn't care about any of that in Makai - and besides, killing Reimu would be adequate revenge if she read the black-and-white correctly.

* * *

Not a particularly sensitive magician, Marisa was suddenly anxious. It was probably an Incident if even she could sense something deadly ahead. Fortunately, she was more prepared than she'd ever been in her life. Marisa's secret was that Master Spark wasn't difficult to cast: in fact you didn't cast it at all. What was difficult was not casting it. As she'd developed it, based on information gleaned from a dozen stolen tomes, she crushed a ball of black and a ball of white energy together, wrapped it in a ball of red magic, then used her magical aura to crush it into a sphere the size of a pea. The black and white energies pushed each other away - the red magic of unmaking pulled them away - and nothing but her aura kept that energy compressed. The compression came as a steady flow of energy from Marisa's magical core. Releasing Master Spark actually enabled her to produce more danmaku, not less. That's why Master Spark always seemed to come out of nowhere when Marisa was fatigued and weakened. It was the holding back of the spell that exhausted and weakened her! But before she'd started taking up with Reimu, she'd had Alice show her how to make a ball of six different magics. Wrapping that in red magic took much more energy, and she'd had to develop a way to keep the energy looping in on itself without draining her. Really, it was one of the greatest accomplishments in Gensokyo history. She had bragging rights for the next decade, at least! She had prepared a seven-colored ball for protection during the ceremony. She'd probably have to use it for the Incident, instead. She had already been heading to the shrine, and now that, she realized, was where her anxiety was coming from. But when she got there, no one was around. Worse, inside the shrine something had blasted through, scattering the contents and Reimu's few belongings. The trail of chaos led to the Barrier. Marisa was human, but things like her Master Spark would only last a few minutes on the other side of the barrier. Nonetheless, she flew through without hesitating.

* * *

 

Alice was following Medicine's phantom trail, when suddenly the phantoms stopped moving, and all sense of Medicine vanished. As if she'd left Gensokyo. She wouldn't have had time to reach Makai, so logic dictated that she'd gone through the barrier at Hakurei Shrine. She quickly tried to sense Reimu - and of course, she could not. She used some strength she'd been trying to husband to lift herself in the air and move swiftly toward the shrine. When she cast her senses ahead, she could feel Marisa for a short while - then she disappeared, as well. Alice was starting to despair, a little.

* * *

 

Hakurei Reimu was maintaining, with some difficulty, a barrier to hide and protect her from animals and non-magical humans, but magically, she was completely unprotected, and facing away from the barrier, when Medicine came through. A stream of green vapor, pulsing with energy, shot out of the cloud Medicine was traveling in, and knocked Reimu forward at the same time as it choked off her air. The poisonous, life-draining, corrosive miasma started to settle on her, and she was losing consciousness. At that point, the Medicine ball was blasted - by her creator Alice's seven-colored energy, and by the energy of Marisa that had given her life to begin with. Medicine felt herself and her phantom children being shredded, but she didn't even turn around. The quicker she made sure that Reimu was dead, the quicker she could stun Marisa and escape. This didn't have to be a failure, and Marisa didn't have to be a casualty. She was not a weakling in any sense of the word, and her resolve was inhuman. More death energy poured out of her even as her own life force was crushed and her body was dissolving. 

* * *

 

Marisa would never forgive herself if her affair with Reimu led to the girl's death. But, freed of the Master Spark weight, her magic rebounded, and she fired danmaku at a steady rate, right into the ball of green phantoms surrounding the presence she realized was Medicine Melancholy. She had no time to wonder where all that power had been acquired, making the doll girl a first class youkai. She dug in her heels and increased her rate of fire. She knew she could kill the doll-girl, and even the fact that Alice would never forgive her didn't make her hesitate; but she realized Reimu would probably perish, too. She saw black and green energy heading slowly towards Reimu, turning the ground to mineral and ashes as it moved forward. Marisa's shielding spells were never great, and especially on this side of the barrier. Then again, Medicine was, of course, weakening at the same rate or greater. Marisa acted quickly and flew in front of Reimu to confront the ball of Death. She threw up her shields, but the death energy flowed on, over the shield and tearing it slowly apart.  And Medicine had one last trick, as she moved forward herself to envelop her victim in the ball of tortured, despairing children from the Nameless Hill. As they were human children (mostly) their phantoms actually lasted a longer time on the nonmagical side of the barrier. They were the only reason Medicine was still standing, and Marisa was pretty sure **_she_** wouldn't be, soon.

* * *

 

A ninth-level stream of seven hues of danmaku interrupted Medicine's journey toward Reimu. Then Alice swept through the barrier suddenly like an angel of light. The Tome was opened, and a white magic poured out of it as Alice recited an incantation in a language that was old even among the magicians of Gensokyo or the vampires of the Scarlet Devil Mansion. It was mixed with a red mist coming out of Alice's heart. In an instant, she was between Medicine and Marisa and Reimu. Marisa stopped firing, and Medicine stopped moving, but the miasma of death energy moved forward. When it reached Alice there was a blinding flash. The death energy was gone, absorbed by the white and blood magic barrier. Alice's eyes met Medicine's, as the last of the phantom children vanished. But the very last thing Alice saw was as her face turned and she met Marisa's eyes. While Alice's eyes were filled with profound sorrow, nonetheless - Alice smiled. Then Marisa saw the light go out of those eyes. Suddenly they were the blank, empty, lifeless eyes of what Alice was at her core, a doll. A doll made in Makai, that couldn't be alive in the nonmagical world. Her broken figure fell to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut, devoid of motion or a living aura.

* * *

 

Faced with the evidence of her mother's love for Marisa, and the forgiveness of her daughter that Medicine saw in Alice's dying eyes, the hatred that had been the only thing left animating Medicine ceased. She collapsed, much like her mother. Marisa was just pondering if she had the magical energy left to make sure Medicine wouldn't rise up and kill them both, when she heard a commotion from the other side of the barrier. Armed with tiny copies of Alice's Tome, Hourai and Shanghai, youkai in their own right, came out of the barrier. Shanghai picked up Alice tenderly and dragged her through the barrier. Hourai did the same thing for her eldest sister. As she did so, she looked back at Marisa and Reimu, and shook her head. They saw that two Goliath dolls were waiting on the other side of the barrier, and they picked up the bodies of Alice and Medicine once they were through it. Then Shanghai, Hourai, and the two Goliaths turned and silently departed.

 


	5. Epilogue

For a while, Marisa stayed away from everyone, including Reimu. When Hieda no Akyuu told her that Medicine was, in fact, her child and Alice's, her blood ran cold. She'd always assumed Alice had adopted Medicine out of some magical affinity and sympathy for living dolls.

Eventually, she went back to the shrine. Loneliness drove her there. Neither of them went very often to the Scarlet Devil Mansion. Patchouli always shut herself away as long as they were there. The rest of the inhabitants didn't care one way or another.

But one day, Flandre innocently asked why Alice wasn't coming with them. It was pretty clear she missed the seven-colored witch. Remilia didn't like telling Flandre anything that would make her sad, so she didn't say her body was resting in her old cottage. Instead, she told her Alice and her dolls had gone back to Makai. "Which isn't a lie, really," she said to Marisa and Reimu once Flandre had run off to do something active. "Lately, there's been some activity at Alice's cottage. The tengu went there, and she hasn't reported back. Marisa, you should go there. Take Meiling. I can do without a gatekeeper for a little while. Shrine girl, you should go back to your shrine and batten the hatches."

When Marisa and Meiling arrived, where the cottage had been there was a jet black cube. It seemed to be covered in leaves, and they thought they saw birds frozen in mid-air, partly inside the cube and partly outside it. Meiling even noticed Aya Shameimaru apparently frozen to the roof of the cube. When she was going to approach and touch the cube, Marisa tugged on her sleeve. "I don't think that's a great idea, Meiling." Marisa experimentally fired at the cube. Her _danmaku_ hit the edge and disappeared. They stood there, staring at the cube, for a long while.

Both of them felt a wave of raw magical energy behind them. When they spun around to look, there were Shinki and Yumeko. As usual, Yumeko was demure and Shinki was smiling. It was impossible to know what mood either of them were in.

Without any preamble, Shinki said, "You wish to see what's going on. Here you go," and she gestured to Yumeko.

The maid floated up to where the tengu was frozen, and plucked her off the top of the cube. When she floated down and released her, Aya suddenly sped up and almost crashed into a tree, shouting, "What the hell???"

With a gesture, Yumeko vanished the pitch black cube. The leaves, floating freely, drifted around the cottage. The birds mostly went on their way. Shinki joined Yumeko as they unceremoniously opened the door and stepped in. Yumeko stayed behind Shinki and beckoned Marisa and Meiling in.

As if nothing unusual had happened, they saw Hourai, Shanghai, and the dolls were tending Medicine and Alice. But where Hourai was dribbling a potion into Medicine's mouth, and massaging her limbs, Shanghai was simply sewing Alice up. One of Alice's eyes had come loose, and when she was done with that, Shanghai looked at her results and seemed pleased. She set Alice on her feet, and had the doll make everyone tea. When Alice handed Marisa her cup, her eyes showed no emotion or understanding whatsoever. She had a fixed smile, and a fixed gaze. Shinki and Yumeko, as usual, showed little expression either. But Shinki's habitual smile seemed definitely a bit forced today, to Marisa. In fact, she was sure she wasn't imagining it.

Suddenly, Shinki addressed Marisa directly:

"You might as well kiss Medicine goodbye. This may well be the last time you see your daughter in your short life." Marisa would have been reluctant, given all that had happened, but she realized Shinki was right, and did as she asked, quite tenderly. "Yumeko. Grandchildren. It's time to go," she heard.

Shanghai had Alice put down what she was doing and lie on the floor. She carefully folded Alice up and put her in a box. A Goliath doll came and took the box outside. Two more carried Medicine out on a stretcher. To Marisa's astonishment, Meiling had noticed that the Palanquin Ship had arrived, piloted as always by Murasa Minamitsu, who stood by it without any expression at all. Byakuren Hijiri observed them nearby, undoubtably along to help keep the peace, if necessary. Without a further word, Byakuren and the captain, Shinki, Yumeko, Hourai and the Goliath dolls boarded. Hourai and Shanghai were carrying a pack of supplies each. From on deck, Shinki waved her hand at Alice's cottage. Instantly, the black cube was back. The leaves froze again, as did a bird unlucky enough to have flown into the cube. The last to board, Shanghai, turned back. She pointed at the house. She pointed at Marisa. She shook her head.

"We won't touch it, Shanghai," Marisa said. She felt funny, as she'd never before addressed Shanghai as a being separate from Alice.

Shanghai gave a small, wistful smile, turned around, and went on board. The Palanquin Ship lifted immediately and was off to Makai.

Marisa was just glad Reimu wasn't there to see the look she imagined she had on her face. Seeing Alice get folded up like a collapsible umbrella and packed away in the luggage made the horror of the previous month all too real. At least Meiling, who was still there with her, was not judgmental. Marisa didn't think she'd ever have a relationship with Reimu that was as good as before. She might even move on to someone else with fewer memories attached to them, someday. But for now, she knew her loneliness would eventually overcome her other feelings. With a certain numbness in her heart, she couldn't bring herself to speculate, or care, about anything beyond that "now."

Meiling hadn't said a word the entire trip, and equally silently, she and Marisa, with a shaken Aya flying a respectful distance away, turned around and went back to report on the news to Remilia.


	6. Afterword

**_Among the shrine maidens of Gensokyo there is a saying to the effect that the great Drunken God ZUN filled Gensokyo with women, then forbade them from pairing off harmoniously, under a pretense that girls' love was evil, but actually because drunken gods are entertained by drama. The Shape of Darkness in the Forest of Magic is seen as one sign of the god's edict. The Rumors are that a witch who lived there loved too well, and was destroyed for her temerity. And further, if anyone ventures where her cottage once rested, they will never see the light of day again._ **

**_At the Scarlet Devil Mansion of late, however, there have been rumors of a quite different sort. Since Remilia Scarlet knows so many inhabitants of Gensokyo, and so many secrets, a rumor that floats around her has to be heeded more than an ordinary murmur of gossip. This is the rumor, more or less, including unexplained descriptions of the thoughts of Kirisame Marisa and Patchouli Knowledge that there is no way to know unless they, themselves, spoke on the matters at hand._ **

* * *

 

It was with a feeling of having been there before that Marisa heard Remilia and Aya tell her there had been "activity" where Alice's cottage was shrouded by a magical field that stopped all time. She decided to bring Reimu with her this time, so stopped off at the Hakurei Shrine and waited for her to be ready. However, when they neared the cottage grounds, they both sensed Shinki was back. Showing more discretion than Marisa remembered the younger Reimu possessing, she begged off just as she had the last time, leaving Marisa there alone. Aya was somewhere out of sight, and Marisa had not bothered to bring a guardian like Meiling or Yumeko from the mansion.

Shinki had not been in Gensokyo for a long time, and Marisa guessed she'd come back to get something, perhaps for one of Alice's doll-children.

Sure enough, the spell had been lifted, and two Goliath dolls were packing things and heading deeper in the forest, where the Palanquin Ship was apparently submerged in the ground, but rising up to meet them. Shanghai and Hourai were there, a bunch of dolls were straightening up and setting up the house, and two girls Marisa didn't recognize were hiding behind Shinki. Suddenly one of them rang a bell. It was her daughter with Alice, Medicine Melancholy. But this version seemed much younger and shyer. Perhaps reconstructing her body had taken years off her maturity? The other girl, then - yes, she looked like a younger version of Alice. So was she a girl or a doll? That girl was much shyer than Medicine and hid behind Shinki, staring at Marisa through the crook of Shinki's arm. Neither of the girls seemed to recognize Marisa.

"This is the black-and-white witch thief, Kirisame Marisa, and your someday neighbor, Alice. Say hello, Medicine, Alice," Shinki said suddenly.

Medicine very shyly said a quiet "Hello," then hid behind Shinki. Marisa thought she showed some recognition of Marisa in her eyes. The mini-Alice wouldn't come out from behind Shinki and said nothing. Wait. Neighbor?

Shinki's smile - so hard to read at all times - seemed amused this time. She waited patiently. Eventually, mini-Alice worked up her courage to also say "Hello," and then duck her head back. However, she then popped out again and said "you're very pretty, Kirisame Marisa."  After a beat, she said who she was, then added, "I can do THREE colors of magic, and FOUR levels of _danmaku_. Shinki says that's really good."

"Grandma Shinki drew a home for me out of the earth on the Nameless Hill," Medicine said suddenly, setting her heels and folding her arms over her chest. "She says we should comfort the children there, and it will be good for me, too. But I get to come stay with Alice nee-chan and Shanghai-nee and Hourai-nee whenever I want. So there!"  And with that, she hugged mini-Alice.

"Medicine," Marisa said tentatively. "I am a kind of friend of your family. I have to go, but would you mind if I hugged you?"

Medicine's expression made it clear she thought that was a terrible idea indeed, but out of curiosity she looked at Shinki, who nodded. Marisa took that as a cue and dashed over to Medicine and threw her arms around her. Medicine stiffly held her arms at her sides and let her.

"Me ... too??" she heard mini-Alice's voice say behind her. Marisa had noticed that Alice hadn't taken her eyes off Marisa after she'd told her she was pretty. Tentatively, Alice came out from behind Shinki and went over to Marisa for a hug. One of Alice's hands drifted down almost touching Marisa's rear end. She hugged Marisa extremely tightly, and didn't let her go right away. She boldly looked Marisa in the eye and smiled.

Marisa thought of Reimu waiting for her at Hakurei Shrine as Alice's hug became tighter and her hands moved around a little on her back and at her waist.

Suddenly, Shinki's voice intterupted. "Girls, before we came here, I told you we were just investigating Gensokyo. So don't get too used to it. We will overnight here, and tomorrow, we will fix up Medicine's cabin, and let her greet and comfort the phantoms left there. But the time is not yet right for you to live here, unfortunately. I am going to mothball the cabins and we will await conditions in Makai."

At that, Alice in particular had a sharp look on her face that said she was very dissappointed. Medicine and Shinki both looked at her, knowingly. At a guess, Medicine had some of her memories intact, though her personality had been drastically altered. Alice showed no sign of letting go of Marisa. It took Shinki giving her a commanding look to make her take her arms away from their place around the black-white witch.

Marisa watched Alice rejoin Shinki. _This is trouble_ , she decided. And probably not a trouble she could avoid, when, or if, Alice returned. And maybe not one she _wanted_ to avoid. But this was definitely trouble.

Watching hidden in a faintly violet air prism behind a tree, Patchouli Knowledge had the same exact thought.

 


	7. NOTICE: This is being rewritten, slightly.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As a stand-alone work, it was fine; but now it has to mesh with another story, so I am making it more like ZUN's material and retroactively changing a few details to match the next story.

Those of you who use downloaders won’t have the other chapters replaced, I think.

So, to summarize the changes being made to this story:

1\. Murasa Minamitsu is piloting the Palanquin Ship, and Byakuren is only along to keep the peace. 

2\. When Marisa saw her in the Forest of Magic, child-Alice was only studying three colours of magic (and four levels of projecting them). It’s only with The Return of Murasa that Alice (now a teen) is again called the “seven-coloured.” And she only fights at five levels of _danmaku_.

3\. Instead of moving back to Gensokyo and staying there (Alice to her old cabin in the Forest, Medicine to one on the Nameless Hill), Alice and her doll-children only stayed a short time, then Shinki decided to move them back to Makai, which is where they are when The Return of Murasa starts. Marisa was so ashamed of everything that went on in this story that she only spoke to Alice, Medicine, or the others on one occasion before they returned to Makai. In the first chapter of Return, Minamitsu is scouting solo, but on her next trip, the girls and Byakuren will all accompany her, and Medicine (an older teen than Alice) will take up residence in her cabin on the Nameless Hill, Alice will set up her cabin again, and the other two girls will divide their time between them. 

4\. Changes are being made to The Return of Murasa as well, mainly to give Patchouli and Hourai more focus.


End file.
